This invention relates to a vehicular seat belt device and more particularly to an improvement of a vehicular three-way type seat belt device.
In a vehicular three-way seat belt device, a seat belt is positioned on one side behind the seat, and therefore when a passenger is to put on the belt, he is required to twist his body and reach for the belt because he must reach some distance for the belt, and this is inconvenient. Particularly in the case of a large door as in a two-door vehicle, a side pillar at a rear part of the door on which the seat belt is vertically mounted results in an even larger distance from the belt and is even more inconvenient for a passenger to put on the belt.
To avoid such inconvenience, it may be effective to dispose the seat belt forwardly of the pillar, but this arrangement is inconvenient for a rear seat passenger to get on and off the vehicle and to load and unload goods.
Various improvements have heretofore been proposed to remedy the above-mentioned drawbacks. In Japanese Utility Model Laid Open No. 52-121020, for example, a belt guide arm is caused to stand up obliquely to an operative position in interlock with rising and falling motion of a front seat back.
The belt guide arm is brought down rearwardly to an inoperative position and held in place horizontally below the door. But this belt guide arm stands up obliquely on a side of the seat when loading the belt and projects in the door opening beside the passenger, thus giving a projecting impression, which is not considered good in point of appearance. In Japanese Patent Publication No. 57-24599, a seat belt is moved back and forth along a side of the roof panel in interlock with rising and falling motion of a front seat back, but since the belt is positioned vertically at an intermediate or front portion of the door opening in a fallen condition of the seat back, this is not considered best for a rear seat passenger to get on and off the vehicle and to load and unload goods. In Japanese Utility Model Laid Open No. 53-56624 a seat belt retaining hook is attached to a shoulder portion of the seat back to retain a seat belt, thereby permitting a passenger to reach for the belt at the seat back shoulder portion when putting on the belt. But in a two-door vehicle, since the seat back is tilted forward when a rear seat passenger gets on and off the vehicle, it is necessary for the belt to be engaged and disengaged with respect to the seat back on all such occasions, and thus the operation is troublesome.
The present invention is intended to overcome the above-mentioned disadvantages of the conventional three-point type seat belt and those of the aforesaid conventional means proposed to remedy such disadvantages.